


Where You Go, I Go

by suqua (wuhnona)



Series: Bondverse Napollya [3]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - James Bond Fusion, Disabled Character, Explosions, Feelings, M/M, Minor Violence, Mission Fic, Napoleon Whump, Napoleon is Q and Illya is the 00, Napoleon pov, Poor Illya, Prosthesis, Technically Post Explosion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:07:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23023735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wuhnona/pseuds/suqua
Summary: Their visual for the entire building had just gone out. All of the outside videos on a secondary, smaller monitor showed only gray smoke and debris against the adjacent buildings. Windows in the closest buildings were shattered, enormous holes shot through walls.Napoleon could still feel the words he’d just spoken on his tongue, echoing in his mind.'All clear, 004. Proceed.'
Relationships: Illya Kuryakin/Napoleon Solo
Series: Bondverse Napollya [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1444654
Comments: 2
Kudos: 98





	Where You Go, I Go

**Author's Note:**

> It's my birthday weekend and Napoleon's is Monday so... As a way of making this week extra awesome and showing appreciation for the people who've enjoyed this lil series... I've decided to finish and post the lil stories I also wrote in this verse!! And uh, we're starting out with some whump... and there'll be cuteness in the future, i swear!!
> 
> This story is a direct Napoleon POV of the explosion aftermath scene (#5). 
> 
> _Perhaps since Napoleon had been a field agent, he understood that having a cool-headed voice guiding him was ideal, especially on high-stakes missions. Maybe that was part of why M had pilfered such an asset from the CIA. It was rare for a field agent with Napoleon's skills to move into tech, much less become quite so accomplished._
> 
> _Knowing that, Illya found that when his cool finally broke... it was all the more jarring, though he couldn’t realize that till much later._
> 
> _#5, Your Loving Arms (Keeping Me From Harm)_
> 
> [As usual the title is from Skyfall lyrics because it saves me having to think of a title. Yay!]

The explosion was _so loud_.

Everyone in the monitor room flinched, powerful speakers trembling from the sudden blast. Several people had torn their headphones off.

Napoleon was standing at his desk, headphones resting around his neck and cup of steaming coffee in his hand. He couldn't breathe. A moment ago, there were a half-dozen live camera feeds showing on the monitor that now showed several squares of grayscale static. 

Their visual for the entire building had just gone out. All of the outside videos on a secondary, smaller monitor showed only gray smoke and debris against the adjacent buildings. Windows in the closest buildings were shattered, enormous holes shot through walls.

Napoleon could still feel the words he’d just spoken on his tongue, echoing in his mind.

_All clear, 004. Proceed._

While Napoleon barely kept himself from dropping the cup, it clatters as he lowers it abruptly, the beat of his heart rapidly speeding back up. Only seconds had passed, but Napoleon was already repeating between his teeth, “No, no, _no_ , _no!”_ as his hands trembled and moved uselessly in the air over the mouse and keyboard. He didn't know what to do. He couldn’t look away from the monitors, the few that showed the edges of whatever had just happened. Shreds of debris were still raining.

The hysterical, bubbling panic barely contained underneath his skin couldn’t help but wonder if one of those floating pieces belonged to his agent, to _Illya_.

Part of Napoleon knows this shouldn’t affect him like this. It shouldn't have happened. He’d personally witnessed the loss of a few fellow agents in his career, both as a field agent himself and as a handler. Every single one had been a gut-punch at the time, but for those times there was always one thing he could tell himself to help him sleep just a little better- it _hadn’t_ been his fault.

This...

This was his fault.

What didn't he check? Whose background didn't he examine thoroughly, which camera did he miss? He should have improved his equipment, he should have created something better, he should have _known-_

A hand grabbed suddenly and tightly to his forearm, derailing his thoughts, and Napoleon’s head whipped down at it.

For a second- just a millisecond, Napoleon is reminded he's wearing his favorite sweater, gray with icy blue. He only wears it sometimes, in the morning when he chooses something to keep him warm in the cold office, he tells himself there's no reason that he reaches for this one more often when Illya is gone. That he doesn't have to match them to the socks with similar pale blue stripes. 

"Napoleon," the owner of that hand catches his attention. Gaby, her eyes were wide too. “Look,” she said quietly, and he looked down robotically at the computer screen. A tiny green dot.

The signal. _The radio signal was still active._

Scrambling for the microphone and trying to pull his headphones back on, Napoleon shouted, “Visual! Check _every_ camera, back footage for what we missed. _What just happened?_ ”

The rest were awakened by his tone and there was a flurry of movement, papers, and voices murmuring.

Napoleon pressed the button to reactivate his side of the radio, pressing one ear cup of the headphones tightly to his ear. “004, come in,” he demands, “Come in. _Come on_. Come in. 004, _come on...!_ 004\. 004, come in... _004!_ ” It doesn’t take long for him to start shouting into the microphone, the plastic of the button cracking under the force of his keeping the direct line open. The room was mostly silent otherwise, tension crackling as the dozen or so Q Branch employees waited or clicked at keys.

Gaby stayed right next to Napoleon, carefully watching the cameras that were slowly clearing of the thicker dust clouds. After a moment of manually moving one of the closest surviving cameras to the blast, she sharply gasps and Napoleon drops back down to stare at the screen with her.

With the damnably bad resolution from a distance, it was difficult to make out exactly... but that long, dark humanoid shape covered under a layer of dust and debris... it _had_ to be Illya.

“Oh, fuck,” Napoleon breathed out, voice trembling barely above a whisper. Blood was pounding in his ears. “I... _fuck._ Gaby, I- He’s--”

Gaby shook her head, pushing him away from the monitor. “ _Keep trying, Q_.”

Napoleon nods several times, unable to tear his eyes away from the unmoving shape on the screen. He- if that even _was_ Illya- hadn’t moved.

Pushing her small face in his line of sight, Gaby’s bright eyes are sharp when she says, “ _Wake him up._ ”

Napoleon’s eyes fly up to Gaby’s and he nods one more time before blinking the darker thoughts away and wets his lips. When he speaks, he’s still loud and still urgent. He's just unconscious, he thinks, unconscious. Hoping the volume will wake him up, "Illya? Illya! Stand up, answer the damn phone already. Come on. Illya! Illya, wake up!"

There was a soft noise. _A cough_.

Napoleon inhaled sharply, head jerking toward the ear cup. "Illya?” His voice dropped enough that a few heads swiveled in his direction, Gaby squinting down at the monitor to see if she could register any movement. Napoleon felt something in his chest loosen.. “Is that--hey, talk to me.” He begged, feeling his eyes start to burn. “Say fucking _something_! Illya!"

There’s another noise, still quiet. Gaby said, “Movement,” just as Napoleon heard Illya groan in pain. The pain was not ideal but certainly was a sign of life.

"Oh my God." Napoleon said, finally at a normal volume. His hands both flew up to cover his face briefly, taking his hands off the button for a moment so he can inhale, exhale shakily. He presses the button again. "Il- 004, report... Please."

More coughing, the scratch of dirt and a gruff, thick Russian voice in his ear said, “ _Alive._ ”

Illya. Illya Illya _Illya_.

Relief flooded Napoleon, momentarily cooling the adrenaline in his body. He closed his eyes, leaning over the desk on both hands. There was a rush of sounds around him too, the room taking a breath of relief in sync. Illya was alive. He was breathing, he was _there_.

Gaby put the visual with Illya onto the main screen, taking away all the blank ones. When Napoleon looked up again, he couldn’t tear his eyes away. He let out a shuddery breath when Illya stood easily. If Illya couldn't walk out of the compound, Napoleon didn’t want to imagine... Evacuating him would have been near-impossible, but Napoleon would have tried it anyway.. _Anything_ to get him back, he knows that. And it’s terrifying.

Napoleon sighed shakily, covering his mouth with one hand and murmuring, “Oh, thank god,” into his palm, other hand still pressing the microphone button. He tried, tried so hard to bring himself back down- let the adrenaline drain from him, but the thought strikes:

 _Illya had almost died._ And Napoleon had sent him into that building, the one that was now a crumbled pile of debris on the ground.

Wetting his dry lips, Napoleon swallowed thickly. He had to get Illya through this mission, get him out of the compound. He had to keep it together.

He tried again. "He blew up the building you were about t-to- _Fuck_ ,” and the guilt succeeded, nothing coming out of his mouth because his thoughts whirled around. He ducked his head and looked at Gaby, mouth opening and closing once before he says, “Moneypenny!"

Gaby, bless her- she easily slides in and begins informing Illya of exactly what they knew and what he needed to do.

Napoleon tears his headphones off, leaves them on the desk. He strides briskly to a side door, throwing it open. He has to zigzag to get to the right place, a room labeled storage. Underneath the sign was the normal MI6 keycard entry, but when he tugs on one corner, it reveals a 9-key password entry.

He keys in a very long passcode, opens the door and throws the door closed once again, it locks behind him immediately.

The room is small and part of it actually _is_ the storage that was here already, stacks of outdated printers and pieces of computer towers. Against one wall, a military-style cot with a pillow and blanket tossed onto it. A clothing rack with several garment bags hanging from it. A series of boxes contain random other brick-a-brack, private projects. There’s a few tubes of paint and the Rubens he’s been working off-and-on sitting on a portable easel.

But waiting in the corner is exactly what he’s looking for, a worn leather punching bag.

Napoleon was no stranger to death- between the CIA and MI6, he saw a fair share. Fellow agents and enemies alike, several times Napoleon had been the agent pulling the trigger. It had been a long time since then, but he could still remember it. A coldness he _had_ to feel, gloss over the emotive part of himself to get through the next day and the day after that. He always had to _keep going_. 

Something tells him that if it were Illya, it wouldn’t be that easy.

Standing in front of the bag, Napoleon takes a few deep breaths and doesn’t bother to pick up his gloves or wrap his hands. He pulled up his sleeves and landed the first punch, feeling it all the way up his arm. There are different kinds of energy in his body, each borne from different things; fear and anger fueling him primarily at the moment and each time he hits the bag, he imagines that energy leaving his body.

It’s both mindless and controlled movement, nothing to visualize with his punches, not even the bastard who probably rigged the explosion.

After a couple of minutes, Napoleon’s knuckles ache and he could think again.

Napoleon’s head was clear again, aside from a terrifying new awareness he hadn’t been able to rid himself.

He’d gotten attached. Hell, Napoleon had never been one to deny himself anything that he wanted- but this was a terrible idea. Such a terrible idea, he couldn’t possibly let himself think about it. He had to compartmentalize this _feeling_ and focus on the most important thing, what Napoleon really wants.

 _Because right now?_ All he wants is Illya back safely.

Sweat dotting his forehead, Napoleon pulled his top off and wiped it across his face and neck. Knuckles stinging, he trades it for a simple t-shirt. Breathing hard, he drops down onto the bed and strips off his prosthetic. The liner soaked in sweat, he rolls that off. Toweling off the sweat on his limb, he carefully folds the hanging cuff of his trouser to keep it out of the way. He picks up a trusty pair of arm-cuff crutches, heads back out, drops into a chair in front of the enormous monitor- exactly where he belongs.

Gaby looks at him searchingly and Napoleon nods, her face relaxes and she smiles. He pulls the headphones back on, eyes clear and following the camera currently showing Illya’s progress across the compound to his new target location.

Napoleon reactives their line. "I've got very few cameras in this one, 004. Be careful, we've got a taste for how ruthless this fuck can be."

\- end

**Author's Note:**

> The next bit of this series will be the short story I wrote of 00!Napoleon/Q!Illya. My birthday is Friday and I also have life things but def goal to post before Napoleon's. And maybe some fic outside this AU too, I have a lot of Napollya sitting around in my hard drive because for some reason my brain say 'its not done if its not a long story right??' 
> 
> Thanks for reading. <3
> 
> @wuhnona on tumblr


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